1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a simulation system employed, for example, in an apparatus for rolling, cutting and carrying a work such as a slab.
A simulation system as applied to a hot strip mill system will be described hereinafter by way of example.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Referring to FIG. 1 showing the arrangement of a common hot strip mill system, a slab is carried by a heating furnace entry table 1, is fed into the heating furnace 2, and then is heated by the heating furnace 2. The heated slab is delivered onto and carried by a delivery table 3, and then is rolled by a rough rolling unit 4 consisting of a plurality of rolling mills and carrying tables connecting those rolling mills. Then, the heated slab is carried further by a delay table 5 and is rolled by a finish rolling unit 6 consisting of a plurality of rolling mills and the peripheral equipments. The slab thus rolled is carried by a runout table 7 to a coiler 8, which coils up the rolled slab in a coil. The coil formed by the coiler 8 is conveyed by a coil conveyor 9 to other equipment, for example, a cold strip mill system, not shown.
Recently, the following operations of the hot strip mill systems have remarkably been automated and hot strip mill systems are operated automatically by the use of automatic control systems including computers and plant controllers:
(1) Automatic start and automatic stop of carrying tables and automatic interlocked operation of carrying tables;
(2) Automatic start, automatic stop, acceleration and deceleration of rolling mills;
(3) Automatic operation of the screw-down device of rolling mills, particularly, the automatic control of draft;
(4) Automatic operation of side guide mechanism, particularly, the control of the opening of side guides;
(5) Automatic start, automatic stop, acceleration and deceleration of the coiler; and
(6) Automatic operation of the coil conveyor.
In the above-mentioned automatic operations, basically, a computer calculates various objective values (including set values) for automatic operation upon the arrival of a slab at a predetermined position and sets the automatic controllers according to the calculated objective values so that each unit starts and completes an automatic operation in synchronism with the arrival of a slab at a predetermined position. Accordingly, it is essential to detect the arrival of a slab at a predetermined position for such an automatic operation. In order to detect the arrival of a slab at a predetermined position, a slab detector, for example, a HMD (Hot Metal Detector), and a detector for detecting metal-in to a mill are provided at predetermined positions to supply signals to the corresponding computers and automatic controllers.
In a recent hot strip mill system, increase in the number of items of automatic operation, the advancement and increase in precision of the control functions and increase in the number of controlled devices tend to require increased number of computers and automatic controllers to form a composite control system.
In such a composite control system, the advanced and complex functions of each controller and increased complexity of the system configuration require, as an essential condition, the confirmation of the general actions of the system in addition to the confirmation of the individual control functions and, in particular, a simulator capable of simulating the imaginary slab rolling conditions and the operation controlling conditions as efficient and effective means to confirm the actions of the strip mill system and the control functions.
There are known methods of simulation employing such a simulator; according to a method shown by the conceptional illustration of FIG. 2, the individual control functions of controllers Nos. 1 to 20 are confirmed by artificially applying simulation signals given by detectors, such as slab detectors, to the controllers, while according to a method shown in the conceptional illustration of FIG. 3, the individual control functions of computers Nos. 1 to 8 and automatic controllers Nos. 1 to 20 are confirmed by applying simulation signals given by OR gates Nos. 1 to 100 connected both to HMDs and simulation push buttons PB respectively.
These conventional methods of simulation, however, have the following disadvantages. The method of FIG. 2 is capable merely of confirming the control function of individual automatic controllers and is incapable of confirming the delicate interlocked control functions between the automatic controllers or between the automatic controllers and the computers. The method of FIG. 3 requires the manual operation of numerous simulation push buttons PB in a complicated and troublesome procedure. Furthermore, it is practically impossible to operate the push button PB in an appropriate timing according to the rolling and conveying of an optional number of slabs. Therefore, according to the conventional methods of simulation, the simulation of only a single and simple function is feasible.